On Leaving America - Part 10 B

  

 Packing Up - Continued

Suddenly I don’t know where some things are . . .  or in a way I do. There is a large box hurriedly filled to get a bunch of my papers out of the way—writing begun years ago, critiques, ideas, notes. Acceptance letters – (not so many of those). Rejection slips – (Lots of those).

These are in a white cardboard box in the spare bedroom . . . about to slide out of my cognitive map. Next they will move from the bedroom to the garage at which point they will go into unknown space, until they reappear in Sweden.

Thank God for on-line submissions and rejections. So much less paper I should keep somewhere.

 Of course there are computer records. I’ve got three computers, each with different capabilities. A newer one, an older one, and one I built. There is a fourth. I bought an adapter case and was going to remove its hard drive. There’s a $600 one-time-only graphics program on there. Once secure inside the case I could use it as a giant USB. But it feels like I’m planning to remove its heart. I’m not sure I can do it. It’s an old computer, but a good one and it works, has no connection to the Internet – secure!

My hard drives are as confused as my room. So many files, things to get back to, photos I might need . . . programs. My PC desktop is a digital chaos, but I know about where things are. Face book, middle left of screen. All graphic stuff on lower right, Photoshop, Inkscape, Photostich.

Some of you are neat, the opposite of me, as organized as A  B  C. I admire that. I wish it would work for me, I really do. I make sporadic attempts. I have 5 two-drawer file cabinets—all full. I should throw some of their files away. There are old stories that don’t work—years old. Short stories I might never get back to. But there are frameworks, skeletons  that lie in wait to be dug up someday . . . If I survive this move I may have time or not. Few short stories do not sell, they go unnoticed and unread. Seems like they would be in this time of so little time. 24/7.

I’d better get back to packing. Putting my cognitive map into the trash. I’ll make a new one. Will the old one take up space in my subconscious? 

‘Memory almost full.’